Penza, 22 September 2014. PenzaNews. Oktyabrsky district court of Penza annulled election results to the City Duma of the sixth convocation at the polling stations No. 32 and No. 33, and ordered a recount. Thus, the court granted the plaintiff’s requests received from Penza Election Commission and Lyudmila Kolomytseva, who ran as a self-nominated candidate in district No. 7, and lost only two votes to the representative of United Russia Vasily Zhuravlev.

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During the meeting held on Monday, October 22, the representative of election commission No. 33 Lyubov Kulyakhtina could not explain to the court the reasons for differences in the final report data on the number of ballots issued.

In addition, at the meeting they interviewed witnesses who were present on election day as observers and candidates’ proxies at the polling stations.

They confirmed that in the vote counting process representatives of election commissions did not put respective marks and seals on the back of the ballots that were declared invalid, thus violating the requirements of federal law.

Vyacheslav Rusanov, lawyer of Lyudmila Kolomytseva confirmed earlier voiced position that the results of the vote at two polling stations must be reviewed.

He also noted that in the further recount ballots marked for Lyudmila Kolomytseva and Natalia Kolomitseva, who was withdrawn from the election campaign, should be considered as a vote for Lyudmila Kolomytseva.

In turn, Alexander Pats, representing Vasily Zhuravlev (United Russia) and the members of the election commissions in the court, disagreed with such requirements.

According to him, the results of voting at the two polling stations must remain unchanged since the election commission made all decisions unanimously and in the auditors’ presence.

As a result, Judge Natalia Polovinko, listened carefully to the arguments of the parties, reversed the previous decision of election commissions No. 32 and No. 33, and ordered their representatives to conduct a recount of the votes.

After the meeting, Lyudmila Kolomytseva told the journalists that she was satisfied with the court’s decision, but stressed her concern about the recount process.

“That’s not all, because they announced the results, and we do not know what further motivation for recount will be. If it happens that the votes for me and my “duplicate,” that is, as I call it, my stolen votes, recognize as mine — that’s one thing. But if it is going to be a simple recount, I do not know that it would give. The box [with the ballots], which came from polling station No. 32, was all ripped up, and it had no seals. Who looked into this box, I do not know. Now for me the most important thing is the issue of sealing the boxes, which were opened in court, because they are returning to the polling stations. It is important that they are properly sealed so that no one else could get into them,” she said.

As news agency PenzaNews reported earlier, Monday, September 15, it became known that Penza Election Commission sent a request to the court for a partial cancellation of the voting in district No.7 — they questioned the validity of the ballots.

According to the regional election committee, in district No. 7 the votes are distributed as follows: Vasily Zhuravlev (United Russia) — 46,59%, Lyudmila Kolomytseva (self-nominated) — 46,52%, Anton Ishchenko (LDPR) — 2,15% and Timur Yusupov (Russian Party of National Control) — 1,64%.

The difference between the two closest rivals made only two voices: Vasily Zhuravlev received 1,453 ballots, Lyudmila Kolomytseva — 1,451.

Later it was reported that Lyudmila Kolomytseva expressed disagreement with the results of the vote counting at two polling stations and also sent a petition to the court.

During the meeting held on Friday, September 19, it was decided to combine the claims for co-production of one civil case.